DESIGN
The design of your website should reflect the message you intend to convey about your business or organisation. Your website is available 24 hours day, 7 days a week. It is available to everyone regardless of where they live and at what time of day or night they want information. Your website lets you be more creative in the way you convey information about your services or products to your clients. You can include images and detailed data or be as concise as you like. Your site will be designed to appeal visually to your chosen target market.
Updating Your Site
Unlike other forms of advertising, your website can be updated without huge costs. It is a simple matter to announce new products, new prices, specials, events of particular interest to your company or organisation and so on.Your information can be kept current and vital so clients returning to your site will always find something of interest.
Site Optimisation
Your site will be optimised for search engines. This means that the design process will be carried out with these requirements in mind and not simply considered as an afterthought once the site is finished. It will meet the requirements of search engines and improve your communication with your clients.
YOUR REQUIREMENTS
Simple Informational Website
The simple informational website, something like an online brochure, is a very cost-effective way of obtaining a web presence. This might consist of a main page, one or more additional pages setting out your services or products and a page containing a contact form so people can send you messages, make bookings or whatever.
Depending on the data and photographs used, a site would probably cost around $900 plus domain name and hosting costs. If a simple order form is all you need, you can also sell products this way. Sites like this may not need a lot of updating if all that is required is to change a few details or photos now and again, we are happy to do this for you at no extra cost.
Selling Products
If you are wanting to sell a range of products from the site, in other words, an online shop, you will need a Shopping Cart.
This site would contain information about your products which would be displayed with photos, description of goods and price if required, posting arrangements and also a method by which clients can order and pay for goods. A site with an online shop would start at $2500.
Costs
As mentioned before, no two sites are the same so it is impossible to estimate accurately what each site will cost without detailed knowledge of your specific requirements.
The only ongoing costs are an annual fee for hosting and the renewal costs of your domain name when necessary.
DOMAINS
Your site will need a name to use for its address on the Internet. If your business or organisation is international in scope, then a .com or .org name will suffice. If you are an Australian company or organisation, then a .com.au or .org.au name will be more suitable. You will need to be a registered company or to have an ABN to be eligible for a .com.au name. Sometimes it is advantageous to purchase both a .com.au AND a .com simply to prevent anyone else using it.
I use an Australian company with very competitively priced domain names. All you have to do is decide what name you want and I will check if it is available and arrange the purchase. Domains can also be transferred if you already have an existing domain.
HOSTING
Western Web Design will arrange to publish your site as part of the service. The cost will be $120 per year for the hosting of a basic site. (If the site contains more than 10 pages, this cost will be slightly higher, depending on the total number of pages.) This comes with email accounts to suit your company/organisation, contact forms, images and other useful stuff such as statistics software, databases and as much disk space and data transfer as is necessary for your particular site.
CONTENT MANAGEMENT
Regardless of the type of site you require, if you want the facility to be able to update the site yourself you will need a Content Management System to be incorporated. As mentioned before, if you only need occasional updates we are happy to do this at no charge.
Content Management System
A CMS as the name implies is a way of managing the data on your website so that it is a simple matter for you to update and control your data without needing to know any of the technical stuff. This site is set up with a database to contain all the data on the site and allows you access to maintain it. If you can fill out a form, you can manage a CMS. It is impossible to estimate costs without knowing your situation, but a ball-park figure for a basic site with a CMS would be $950. (As mentioned before a basic site can be considered one with less than 10 pages – if there are more pages, the cost will increase depending on the total number of pages.)
Interactive Organisation or Club Website
A further instance of using a CMS would be for a club or organisation setting up a website for active use by members. This may contain data such as a public area with information and contact form, an automatic member signup with email address verification, a members profile page with basic information & photos, a discussion forum with opt in / opt out email notification on new post, a news section for adding new information / articles etc, a central calendar of events for members to view, a photo gallery for members to upload photos, a members list and search with links to individual member profiles, an administration area to administer all content, discussions, photos and members and multiple security profiles to allow certain members more access to assist in administration.
A CMS for such a site would be in the region of $2500 but again it depends on how comprehensive your requirements are. If not all of the features are required, the price would be correspondingly less.